Ipickthiswhiterose

Sounds like a movie that takes a great big swing. I always respect that. I've never understood the Anne Hathaway hate, something really weird about the tone of it to me. Also, any conversation about Matthew McCanaughey needs to take a moment to appreciate the awesomeness of Frailty. One of the great underrated horrors of this century.

Absolutely, the incompetence is beyond parody. There's literally a superhero film currently still in the Top 5 with a higher multiplayer.

It's a horrendous two-headed monster. Not only does it give false impressions of where societal perspective is at, it also means that any media and commentators looking for a hot take or easy target because at the end of the day pretty much any perspective on anything will be tweeted, allowing for literally anything to be reported as "outrage". So now not only is there fake, or at least heavily distorted or exaggerated "outrage", but a whole heap of outrage about outrage. Meanwhile, this looks like a great hold for The Upside and some strong holds all round - nice enough weekend for Poppins, actually. I still haven't seen Split so probably don't belong in the Glass discussion but I have been surprised by some of the upper estimates that were given for this film.

Context is sometimes everything. We don't know how Paramount thinks internally about the film, but I think Bumblebee's return is FAR better than it looks. I think the thing to bear in mind here is that BB was greenlit as a spin-off to the franchise before TLK had come out. This means that at one point in production, Paramount were facing the colossal collapse of TLK from Extinction and by that time had probably already sunk a pile of money into a film that now looked like a surefire bomb since if the actual main franchise was halving its returns in just one movie, what would be the chances of the spinoff. Thus I think the fact that not only has this movie made *some* money, but also returned goodwill and genuinely managed to shift itself from a spin-off to a reboot while retaining a relatively smaller budget.....I honestly think it's a massive win far greater than the actual "returns" would suggest. This was a movie that had the very real potential, even likelihood, at one point to either be a 40-50m write off with no release, or an outright bomb.

I understand the point being made here but I don't think that Batman v Superman aligns precisely with Spiderman. The precedent for Batman v Superman was that only recently Batman was in a trilogy of movies in which two instalments had just grossed over 1b. In addition to the character that had done this was added the most iconic superhero in the world. Both characters together, on screen, for the first time*. (*In a mainstream blockbuster release) Spiderman: Homecoming was a movie based around a character that, yes had proven himself a major box office draw in the past, but had just had an underwhelming box office with generally bad reviews and public sentiment and was fighting an inevitable public perception in places among the more casual moviegoer of "What? Another different one?". In terms of world box office, Spiderman is also a lot more US/parochial centric than Batman and especially Superman - and the "local/neighbourhood" aspect of Spiderman was particularly emphasised in the marketing for Homecoming. Batman v Superman didn't 'flop' in outright terms. And Spiderman: Homecoming could perhaps be considered a mild underperformance if one leans exclusively on the first two Raimi films as precedents and ignore that it was clearly positioned as a lesser contributor to the MCU. I suppose I also note that at a time that I wasn't going to the movies as often at the time - I didn't see either of these films in the cinema. I would suggest that to some extent neither of them really appealed to people who weren't automatically inherently interested in the idea of them. Which is born out by the legs of especially BVS.

That's really great UK business for the Favourite. Nice to see Stan and Ollie having a reasonable opening as well. I have seen people talking about these movies on my casual social media as well so they seem to have got a bit of visibility. The Favourite will almost certainly outgross Into the Spiderverse and has an outside chance of outgrossing Bumblebee and Halloween. I would maintain that these are relatively disappointing numbers for Poppins. While it has made a lot of money, it probably won't reach Paddington 2 and it might not reach Peter Rabbit.

As I suspected that Bumblebee figure is significantly higher than the one reported as the first estimate. It happened the previous week as well.

The thing that makes the Hart's tweets issue difficult is that they weren't "anti-PC" or "Pre-woke" in the least. Nor were they attempted humour gone awkward. They were just mean spirited pieces of nastiness, that at the very least *appear* to be simply authentically held pieces of unpleasant personal belief. But everyone is capable of nastiness, and the unpleasant personal belief is one that lots of people apparently have, so it isn't something that will significantly impact my own perspective of his career. But implying that people who are genuinely changed in their opinions of Hart are being oversensitive in this case........mmmm nah, I kinda get it. The Upside looks like a decent film and it seems to be a good collection of personalities on screen. I'm probably going to check it out before I do Stan/Laurel, OTBOS and other movies that open this week in the UK.

Because: - Guy Ritchie has a very distinct style, which has historically sometimes rubbed viewers up the wrong way. - Lots of people have a very close attachment to Robin Williams in the genie role, and some may simply be offput by anyone else doing what they see as sacrilege. - Certain musical set pieces that dominate perspectives of the animated movie will be very difficult to transition to live action (Never had a Friend, Prince Ali) - Traversing any snarky responses to a visually caucasian Jasmine. - People increasingly having it in the neck for Disney outside of their most banner releases. - Just a sliiiiiiightly odd release date that indicates that while it's not NOT being prioritised, that it isn't exactly BEING prioritised either. - Generally massive year for Disney meaning that it isn't even in their top 7 or 8 biggest name launches of 2019, so might get lost in the shuffle marketing and visibility wise. None of which is to say that I myself think it will either be bad or fail, but I certainly get that if one was going to stick one's neck out and call a surprise Disney flop/underperform this year, this might be the one you'd choose.

I agree about the resiliency. But I'm not sure MPR goes in the bag as a "live action remake". It's a sequel, and a sequel from a film so old there wasn't really any box office format to go on. So I don't think it provides a template for the other three to that much of an extent. I think at present these remakes are going to be taken very much as their own individual beasts. I really don't like the live action remakes, but I think realistically if something as horrendously made as BATB made a huge amount, it pretty much establishes a floor for the Lion King, which is an even more beloved movie from the same time period. I can't honestly see TLK not ending up in the highest 20 grossers of all time, and probably top 10. I wish that weren't the case, but I just can't see any other eventuality. Aladdin I think could go in a lot of different directions. It's certainly the one that might actively receive the strongest backlash, and might legit flop. Dumbo I think is something of a different kettle of fish. It's going to be less close to the original than the above two and time means that there's much less of a nostalgia factor. I think this will be one where the reviews and immediate reception will actually make a difference.

If I remember correctly, Bumblebee shifted quite significantly from its estimate last weekend. I may be wrong, though. Seems a bit on the low side and would be surprised it if doesn't finish above OTBOS.

What do you mean by this? 3 more what? Because if this is an insinuation that MPR doing tepid box office means that Lion King isn't going to make a fortune then I'm not sure how to respond to that. And I say this as someone who really, really wishes Lion King wasn't going to make a fortune.

Interesting since the film takes so many liberties with the original material that a down-the-line version of the actual stage show would almost seem like a completely different movie. I don't think you'd be touching Minelli's performance specifically since she doesn't play anything like the actual Sally Bowles as she's written. I think it may put off some Americans who are attached to the original, but actually WW I would agree with you that this would be a good idea in terms of Blunt and she would really pull it off. Don't know about Miranda's non-naturalistic chops though, not many actors in the US are trained that heavily outside of the Stanislavski system other than in some specialist courses, and a proper version of the Emcee needs an outstanding gestic performer. EDIT: Though if I could pick any Sally Bowles I'd go with Isla Fisher. That lady has been so appallingly underserved relative to her skill set.

Aside from anything to do with Singer. I just don't think that facsimile biopics* of the nature of Bohemian Rhapsody have any business being in the conversation for awards. And I would say the same thing if First Man was in the conversation. And I felt the same way about Gandhi, The King's Speech, The Queen, The Iron Lady, Ray, Ali, Lincoln, The Theory of Everything and several others. We are used to and seem to simply accept the idea that comedies and blockbusters don't/rarely get in the conversation, ostensibly because of the limits they have in exploring deeper concepts or themes but you can double or treble down on this for the facsimile biopic. By their nature they can be well made, enjoyable, successful, popular but to me there's just a fundamental limit in what they can ever actually try to achieve artistically. If you're accepting that's the case for blockbusters, comedies, horror as the awards bodies usually do, surely these limits apply even more to these biopics. They are just fundamentally artistically unambitious by their nature. *By "facsimile biopic" I refer to any biopic film that represents some kind of replication of the real life of a famous person, albeit with some artistic license to either simplify the person represented or more likely to make the film more digestible for the wide audience. This would contrast with biopics that attempt to use the person as a metaphor for the age in which they existed or a wider concept such as Wolf of Wall Street, Zodiac, The Social Network, Amadeus or The Favourite which aim much, much higher artistically.

Technically speaking having separate Actor and Actress competitions is indeed pointless. The same skill set is being evaluated and neither sex has a particular advantage over the other. But I think marketing and PR means that the merging really isn't a serious possibility. If anything the academy would probably want more high profile awards, not less. This is the first time in a while the Actress side of things seems much more interesting. Olivia Coleman's performance was brilliant. So was Toni Collette's, Saoirse Ronan's and by all accounts Glenn Close though I haven't seen the movie. A developing actress like Lady Gaga really has no business in the conversation, even though she did a really good job, but it would definitely pull in some public attention and she's clearly in the mix.

Yeah, I was going to note that one. It's one of the best demonstrations of how ridiculous award season is. It was seemingly nominated entirely to save some embarrassment for everyone involved.

I don't get how crusty some are that not everyone loved Aquaman. And I say this as someone who loved Aquaman. Like, maybe people just have different opinions. And I'm sure that most people are going to be just fine with Aquaman making 1b. Heck, even if someone hated it the chances are that between the 2 sets of Minions crap, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, Michael Bay's nausea-inducing robot fights, Beauty and the Beast and the Jurassic flipping World movies it wouldn't get into anyones list of the 5 worst movies to have made that much money.

I'm delighted Olivia Colman won. In the midst of the shallow and callous nonsense that awards tend to end up being about there always tends to be actually one or two flecks of deserving in there. I haven't seen Glenn Close's performance but I would suspect that she is another instance. As others sort of seem to be indicating here, BR (and ASIB and GB) is a crowdpleasing bit of fluff. It's fine, good indeed, for what it is but what it is has pretty serious limits in terms of artistic merit. And best actor performers, I'm sorry, should have no business going to biopics where the performance is aiming for facsimile. Hoping that The Favourite or Roma lock down the Oscars. They aren't necessarily the best movies of the year, but they are comfortably closer than most of the other realistic options. But, as always, that's just in an ideal world as opposed to the one we're in where these things are pretty much meaningless and arbitrary.

What does the BB convert to or project for the weekend? Sounds comfortably up on predictions.

There is nothing more alluring in this world than: - Groupthink that's masked as individualism. - Simultaneously pretending that everyone who doesn't agree with you is both involved in some massive dangerous conspiracy and also somehow easily dismissed/defeated. Faux-objectivism and a regression into modernist thinking caused by bad debate in a lot of pop-culture and mainstream mediums seems (and I emphasise SEEMS) to have triggered a certain part of the online gaming community into this dynamic. Or to put it another way: once you have got people to accuse individuals who work for the multinational conglomerate Disney Company as "Marxist", there is barely a leap of logic those people are now not capable of making.

I tend to defend Holdo as a character. I think those who dislike her read the film as narratively presenting her as entirely in the right (and Finn entirely in the wrong), as opposed to one half of a failed piece of communication. I don't really agree with that reading. I think what it comes down to is if you think it's unrealistic that upper management of a large organisation will arbitrarily keep secrets and strategy from everyone else, even though it seems not to provide any advantage for them to do so and it just presents as a facade of arrogance, then you obviously haven't worked in a large organisation. But then I'm also the person who thinks that Rey is being presented as a hot-headed do-gooder-for-self-centred-reasons with a misplaced and dangerous sense of manifest destiny and is basically the character that Anakin should have been in the prequels. But I don't think the level of planning is there to pull it off.

The new Star Wars Episodes were always going to be caught between a rock and a hard place the moment it was determined it would continue the storyline of the original series. Do the tried and tested and one ends up with The Force Awakens and tribute versions of the OT, try new stuff and inevitably face a fan backlash from a large portion of the fandom as with TLJ. The lack of planning and continuity hasn't helped. Not at all. But mostly it comes down with these stories being far harder to forge than most people think. It isn't a world where you can 'expand on themes' of the OT, since there aren't really any themes in the first place. Lucas isn't coy about the fact it was based on myth-making and the tropes of epic storytelling. The OT isn't Sci-Fi: it's fantasy and a self-contained piece of storytelling that is very hard to expand for the masses. It doesn't help that since the first movie of the original you have the opposing forces of a) The Jedi are cool and what the fan aspires to be and b) In order for the story to work the Jedi are a failed concept and didn't/can't work. Equally you have the opposing forces of a) The Force is around everyone and people are/aren't sensitive to it in equal measure and b) The Force is what the Jedi use, even though technically anyone in theory could. In a self-contained original story the above oppositional forces didn't matter, they were kept in tension. Ever since these inherent dissonances have caused problems with creating satisfying Star Wars stories. It's not an accident that the best Star Wars story since the OT, Rogue One, very much kept the Force and the Jedi at arms length. And Solo failed because nobody asked for it, there was no clear consistent tone in the marketing, and it came out at a ridiculous time relative to the last instalment. Release it after October and lean overtly into B-Movie fun territory and it would have probably done much better.

This doesn't give any indication of averages. Nobody is contesting that there aren't more male-led films at the top, because more male-led films get made than female-led films by nearly a 5:2 ratio. If that ratio were flattened would female-led films still do better than male-led films on average? Perhaps. Perhaps not. That isn't the claim either. Just that on the dynamics for 2014-17, female-led films averaged better for that period. It's data. It isn't 'wrong'. You might argue the "female-led movies DOMINATE" is pushing it a little and ignoring other dynamics, but the data itself is peer reviewed and clearly evidenced. Maybe in 2018 Mortal Engines (if it counts - not sure), Wrinkle in Time and Nutcracker all doing poorly would mean that male-led, big-budget films averaged more than female-led films. Maybe. But I don't know. EDIT: You edited the post to account for the article not stating what it appears that the headline stated. I understand and should probably acknowledge that. This is a problem everyone working in science has all the time: a report comes out with data alongside reasoned and qualified evidence, only for headline writers and controversy spinners to come out and stretch the conclusion as far as possible, removing all qualifying statements and complexities of the data, and then people turn around and blame the people who generated the data and wrote the conclusion rather than the people who wrote the headlines.

Actually bothering to have clicked on the link provided to read the article would have shown that you are wrong as it specifically states both recent star wars episodes were designated as male-led films (though presumably Rogue One was designated as female-led).

If I've got this right, the projected weekend would mean that Bumblebee would have a x3 OW multiplier by the end of its second weekend. Does anyone know if this has happened many time before without any screen expansion?